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WATCH: When Mike Johnson Knew Joe Biden Was Not In Charge
By Eli Lake
The Free Press In D.C.
January 17, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/when-mike-johnson-knew-joe-biden-not-in-charge

“Sir, why did you pause LNG exports to Europe?” the speaker asked. “I didn’t do that,” Biden replied. He had, three weeks earlier—but he wasn’t aware of what he’d signed.

The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has had a front-row seat to the intellectual decline of Joe Biden. On Friday, in an interview with Bari Weiss for Honestly, Johnson shared an anecdote that demonstrated just how checked out the outgoing president has been.

During the third week of January 2024, Johnson was invited to a meeting at the Oval Office with several of Biden’s top national security advisers and cabinet chiefs. The ostensible purpose of the meeting was to persuade Johnson to support the latest aid package for Ukraine (which he ended up doing). But Johnson also wanted to talk with the president about a recent executive order that paused the approval of new permits to export American liquefied natural gas (LNG) to our European allies—an important issue for his Louisiana constituents. In the course of a one-on-one with Biden, Johnson learned the president was unaware of his own executive order.

The outlines of this anecdote were previously reported by The Wall Street Journal, but the Journal relied on anonymous sources. On Friday, Johnson put the tale on the record.

“Can I ask you a question? I cannot answer this from my constituents in Louisiana,” Johnson recalled telling Biden. “Sir, why did you pause LNG exports to Europe? Liquefied natural gas is in great demand by our allies. Why would you do that? Cause you understand we just talked about Ukraine, you understand you are fueling Vladimir Putin’s war machine, because they gotta get their gas from him.”

Biden, according to Johnson, was stunned. “I didn’t do that,” Biden said. Johnson responded, “Mr. President, yes you did. It was an executive order like three weeks ago.” Biden continued to deny that he paused the LNG exports. At that point, Johnson suggested that the president ask the president’s secretary to print out the executive order, so the two could read it together.

Biden then recalled that he had signed an executive order, but it only called for a study on the effects of LNG. Johnson was firm. “Sir, you paused it, I know. I have the export terminals in my state. I talked to those people in my state, I’ve talked to those people this morning, this is doing massive damage to our economy, national security.”

In this exchange, Johnson said he realized that Biden was not lying to him. “He genuinely did not know what he had signed,” Johnson said. “And I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, “We are in serious trouble—who is running the country?” Like, I don't know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know.”

Johnson said in a follow-up answer that he did not know who was really running the country. His theory is that Biden agreed to place more leftist progressives in key positions in exchange for his primary rivals dropping out of the race.